Commons:Requests for comment/Technical needs survey/Metadata editing tool

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Metadata editing tool[edit]

Description of the problem[edit]

  • Proposal type: feature request
  • Proposed solution: a tool that can:
  1. edit exif
  2. not cause corruption to files
  3. be lossless editing if possible? if not, it should still minimise the change in quality and/or filesize.
it'd be great if such a tool can be developed and hosted like the croptool or rotatebot.
maybe something already exists on the internet.--RZuo (talk) 06:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Phabricator ticket:
  • Further remarks:

Discussion[edit]

It would be nice if one could just tick a "remove exif data" checkbox. There are tools for that that allow you to do so for many images at once and a gadget could be possible too since most people don't need it and exif data could provide additional information. --Prototyperspective (talk) 13:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A feature for removing location metadata could also be useful - some people are sensitive about revealing their locations.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 14:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that would be better than editing exif data as the latter would only result in more hard-to-detect faulty metadata (e.g. mainly create new problems rather than solve any tangible ones). Just giving the people the ability to remove exif data (all or location data) would probably be better. Prototyperspective (talk) 14:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I am missing something, exif data could be easily removed by using image editing software, on the user's computer or smartphone. If the image has already been uploaded to Commons, it could be overwritten with the version without exif data, and then asking for the previous version to be deleted. I think that general image editing features are out of Commons scope. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:36, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If it really isn't easily possible, I think this should be proposed to developers of some image editing free software, such as GIMP, since it would be very useful to many people outside Commons. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When you export a file with GIMP you can simply uncheck exif data. Please check in advance, for example by doing a Web search if you don't have that software. It's also possible to remove exif data of all files in a directory. Removing the exif data at upload would make it a) more convenient especially if you only use this rarely and would like to use this for only some but many images b) more accessible to users. I already argued that it's not an important issue unlike several other proposals and would only be useful to have at some point. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Prototyperspective, OK, it seemed a bit odd to me to have something similar to image editing features here, but I won't oppose any purposal that is useful (reading the comments above, I thought almost no software could easily remove exif data without creating problems, that's why I said to ask for this feature to be included in software such as GIMP). MGeog2022 (talk) 20:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment I think there is a broader question here: how much do we want to provide by way of file-editing tools for files that have already been uploaded? So far, the I believe the only ones we have are crop & rotate. (Am I missing something?) I'm not sure if editing EXIFs is the very next priority (some sort of contrast manipulation might be a higher priority). Plus, it isn't clear to me that this particular need arises all that often. It isn't all that hard to download-fix-reupload. - Jmabel ! talk 19:50, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Also: if this is specific to EXIF, let's say "EXIF" not "Metadata". "Metadata" can mean a lot of things, including SDC and everything in the wikitext of a file page. - Jmabel ! talk 19:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Well.... Let's say embedded metadata. Because the metadata box at the end of the page can be EXIF, XMP, IPTC, file native and probably at least one other metadata format that I forgot about. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Info I think it would be very useful to look into the metadata of files that were uploaded, but not published. So you can check before uploading in a simple way --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 09:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment Maybe a good example of an Exif Data in need of an edit. In this file the Exif data seems to me at least repetitive and bloated.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 08:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

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